Lahore, Oct 21: A Pakistani woman journalist, Zeenat Shahzadi, who was allegedly kidnapped while pursuing the case of an Indian engineer two years ago has been rescued, reports claimed on Saturday.

The 26-year-old reporter of Daily Nai Khaber and Metro News TV channel went missing on August 19, 2015, when she was allegedly kidnapped by some unidentified men while she was en route to her office in an auto-rickshaw from her home in Lahore.

Before her abduction, Shahzadi was believed to have ‘forcibly disappeared’ while working on the case of Indian citizen Hamid Ansari, who went missing within the country in November 2012.

Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) President Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal said on Friday evening that Shahzadi had been rescued from an area on the Pakistan- Afghanistan border on Thursday night. He also added that tribals from Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces had played a key role in her recovery.

Two years ago, Shahzadi had filed an application with the Supreme Court’s Human Rights Cell on behalf of Fauzia Ansari, the mother of Indian national Hamid Ansari, who had gone missing in Pakistan since November, 2012.

She secured in August, 2013 a special power of attorney from Ansari’s mother. She also pursued his case in the Peshawar High Court.

Ansari, a Mumbai resident arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online.

Shahzadi submitted application to the CIED that ordered registration of the FIR in 2014. At the same time, she also filed a habeas corpus petition in the Peshawar High Court.

Ansari was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment reportedly by a military court on charges of illegally entering Pakistan and ‘spying’. He is still in jail.

(Inputs from Agencies)

Published Date: October 21, 2017 11:42 AM IST

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Updated Date: October 21, 2017 11:47 AM IST

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Tribals from Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces played a key role in her recovery.

The 26-year-old reporter of Daily Nai Khaber and Metro News TV channel went missing on August 19, 2015.